Modern mobile devices can provide a number of telecommunications services, including telephony service, short messing service (SMS), and e-mail communication service. Conventional mobile devices with telephony applications are configured for a particular telecommunications carrier. Typically, both the software and the hardware of these mobile devices are configured for a particular carrier prior to activation of the mobile device. For example, carrier-specific configuration of the software requires separate software builds for each telecommunications carrier that will be supported by the mobile device, increasing the total development time of the mobile device with the addition of each carrier. Carrier-specific configuration of mobile device hardware occurs at the time the mobile device is manufactured. For example, radio boards in mobile devices are provisioned to only operate with smart cards associated with a particular telecommunications carrier. Device configuration at the manufacturing stage requires at least one factory line for each telecommunications carrier supported by the mobile device. In addition, a user of a conventional mobile device is limited to using the mobile device with the particular telecommunications carrier for which the mobile device was configured. If the user wishes to switch to a different telecommunications carrier, the user would need a separate mobile device specifically configured for the desired carrier.